Lotro Dev Corner May

Dev Corner May

The speed of leveling was one of the adjustments that we wanted to make. It is a little faster than we intended and we'll likely be boosting the health of monsters at lower levels up a little more at some point in the near future. However, the changes to quests that make them solo is definitely by design. We made the conscious choice to provide more solo content in earlier levels and indeed throughout the game. We also made the choice that fellowship content will still have its place in the game, but we wanted to gradual ease people into this rather than offer these quests in the first few levels of play.

Many deeds/traits especially class ones, require x number of kills to complete or y number of 'use skillActually, we are well aware that the changes we made have negatively impacted the rate at which players can complete deeds. We will be making a full pass on deeds in a future update. We want to get a complete pass finished and solidified before we make any more adjustments.

Are there plans to utilize the Weatherhills/Far Chetwood/Nen Harn area more, and what parts of Book 2 are going to happen there?
My comments in relation to Weatherhills/Far Chetwood/Nen Harn was in relation to changes that may or may not make it into a future update. There are a good number of camps in that area with little to no content pointing to them. The goal here is to leave these largely intact, but provide a little context to the area by introducing some quests directed toward said camps. That particular area would not directly impact Epic Book 2. With all that said, The Shadows of Angmar Epic, Book 2 will undergo a massive change in a future update. The changes WILL NOT be present in Book 8. Book 8 focuses on bringing Breeland and The Shadows of Angmar Epic, Book 1 into line with the new levels. You could expect the changes to the Epic Book 2 structure someone later this year.

How you judge which quests to revamp?
There was a decision made to reduce the relative speed which players encountered their first fellowship quests.
As for how we decided which quests to revamp, it was a simpler process. We took a look at the structure of the quest lines, the locations that they lead players to and how players were moving around the world. We found that there was an awful lot of back and forth to the same locations multiple times. This lead us to make choices on how to better move players through the world, giving them a feeling of accomplishment as they move from one location to the next.
From here, we were able to determine which quests required alterations to bring them in line with the new structure for questing and advancement. The last step was laying them out across the zones in a manner that made sense.

Is the implication that you assume there will NOT be sufficient other low level characters to fellow with?
The decision was not based on the number of lower level players, but a mindset that would ease players into fellow based content more slowly. We wanted to players to get a feel for the game and their classes before sending them into a class situation. Now, the inclusion of fellow based questing is going to remain an issue for a while as we continue to work out the kinks in the road, but the goal is to provide players with opportunities to fellow up starting in their late teens and early twenties.

Will we see another area for, say, 20-30 (or any other level range) with a different "feel" to it?
Our data mining suggests that far fewer people quest in large fellowships. Smaller fellowships, 2 or 3 players, seem to be a higher populace and by far solo players dominate the world. That means that the main focus will certainly remain solo questing. This DOES NOT mean that we are eliminating fellowship questing. It means that we are focusing on getting our solo structure consistent from 1-50.
Our goal for the 20-30 (actually 22-32) experience is to provide two distinct tracks for leveling in this band. More on that later.

Our goal was to make certain that quests that you were doing along the new leveling tracks were all within your level, none going grey too quickly. In fact, we are doing what we can to ensure that quests remain on level, or just a little under level for longer.
Slower leveling will happen. There is no doubt in that, we just wanted to make those early levels - introductory levels - easier and more fun. The slower leveling will happen as you progress. Despite many thoughts to the contrary we are not trying to speed up the time to reach 60 at all. We just wanted those early levels to flow smoothly and feel faster. As I said before, we certainly took monster health down a little more than we likely should have. But I would rather miss in that direction than have made them 50-60 fights as they were before.

After I finished the whole Ered Luin area, I was already at level 17and started questing in Bree, skipping the whole content from The Shire... I've been back later, but it was no fun exploring when all the mobs/quests were gray, basically, no challenge for me to complete them, except for getting my virtues up.
Each of the starter zones is meant to provide a 1-15 experience, we do not expect players to finish one and then go to another. You certainly can if you desire, but it is not expected to happen.

Don't you think it will be a good idea to let players take their fate in their own hands?
Technically, players do have their fate in their own hands, they can choose to play whichever area they wish after leaving the tutorial zones. The challenge of lower level creatures - in any game - is far less than a higher level creature as we do ramp up difficulty over time.